Off The Pages: A Superhero Science Fiction Adventure

Chapter Thirteen

At a familiar home in Alton, a cell phone rang. Manny woke up from his nap to his anime ringtone. "Yeah?" he said. Although he had been doing the superhero thing for a while now, this was the first time Davis had called this early.

"Remember how I said you'll have your opportunity?" The FBI agent said. "Well, you're up."

Manny pulled himself to a seated position. The alarm clock indicated ten in the morning. The previous night, he'd been all over the world, handling minor emergencies. This day, he'd wanted to take the day off and relax. Still, for Agent Wilson to call him this early, indicated something serious was going to happen. "What's going on?" he asked the agent.

"We've been monitoring some QAnon assholes," Davis revealed, "and one of their own just blabbed and said that some guy they know is planning on hitting a campaign stop of a Representative Jan Dunsmith. It's in California."

Manny's eyes went wide. "When?"

"Any time now!"

"Oh shit!" Manny cried, standing up and shifting into his female form. "Why didn't you tell them?"

"I did!" Davis cried. "But you need to be there."

"I'm going!" Jennifer shouted, dropping the phone onto the bed.

She shifted and zoomed out of the house, and up into the atmosphere. Scanning the countryside, she came across the sight of the fairgrounds which held the rally. In a few moments, she stood in back, scanning the crowd for any kind of weapon. Nothing came up. No one except for the federal agents surrounding the congressman had any guns of any kind.

The air erupted with a loud crack.

A second pop sounded as a projectile crashed into Jennifer's outstretched hand, inches from the congressman's face, and vaporized on contact.

"Sir!" she shouted. "Are you alright?"

"You!" Jan Dunsmith cried. "You're that woman!"

A pop sound echoed, and she caught another projectile as it came from a different angle. This time, the assailant had made a mistake. He'd allowed himself to be seen. She hovered over him in a moment, looking down. The crowd instinctively parted, seeing the imposing woman flying overhead. He turned to run, but she reappeared in front of him again. "You're not escaping," she warned him.

He pelted her with pieces of gravel and various screws at orbital velocity. They collided with her hands moving at a blur and she held them up to reveal the dust that his objects left behind, with her skin unmarred. Her arms blurred for just an instant, and then all the small bits of debris on his person lie on the ground around him.

"YOU! ON THE GROUND!"

The shout of several federal agents at once caused the man to kneel.

"Thank you so much!" Jan Dunsmith said, stepping off the stage. He approached; his bodyguards looked nervous as he stepped closer to the powerful heroine. As a handful of large, suited men wrapped handcuffs around the assailant with pistols pointed at his vulnerable bits, the attacker decided to go quietly, as his attack had failed, and he wasn't likely to pull a fast one with this woman here. The congressman watched the would-be assassin carted off and looked just a bit up at her. She stood about two inches taller than him. "What's your name?"

"Jennifer," she replied. "Jennifer Black."

He gave her a confused look. "No codename?" He thought about it further. "I thought they were calling you Capacitor, after the character you look like."

She shook her head. "I'm a real person," she protested. "Besides, if you could fly and were super strong, would you put on a Superman costume and call yourself Superman?"